Autonomous Team Formation and Task Negotiation Among Unmanned Vehicles

a technology of autonomous team formation and task negotiation, which is applied in the direction of simultaneous traffic control system, process and machine control, instruments, etc., can solve the problems of limited operation area, inability to meet all requirements of single vehicle, and inability to easily integrate additional vehicles of the same or other types in conventional systems

Active Publication Date: 2018-04-12
SOUTHWEST RES INST
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  • Abstract
  • Description
  • Claims
  • Application Information

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

However, there are many situations in which a single vehicle cannot meet all the requirements to accomplish a goal.
Conventional systems do not tend to easily integrate additional vehicles of the same or other types, to effectively use vehicles with varying levels of capab...

Method used

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  • Autonomous Team Formation and Task Negotiation Among Unmanned Vehicles
  • Autonomous Team Formation and Task Negotiation Among Unmanned Vehicles
  • Autonomous Team Formation and Task Negotiation Among Unmanned Vehicles

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Embodiment Construction

[0014]The following description is directed to a system of autonomous vehicles in which each vehicle negotiates its own role within a team of vehicles. The team is formed to accomplish a specified goal, which has an expected set of required capabilities. Each vehicle negotiates its team membership based on its own capabilities and the needs of the team, and does so without supervisory control or human intervention.

[0015]In the evolving parlance of autonomous vehicles, unmanned ground vehicles and unmanned aerial vehicles are referred to as ground vehicles (UGV's) and aerial vehicles (UAV's), respectively. In a system that uses both ground and aerial vehicles (or water vehicles), the vehicles may be more generally referred to as “UXV's”.

[0016]Autonomous vehicles may also be referred to as “agents”, and multi-vehicle systems as “multi-agent” systems. The terms “vehicle” and “agent” are used herein synonymously to mean any one of various types of UXVs.

[0017]For purposes of this descrip...

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Abstract

A system of autonomous vehicles for forming a team of autonomous vehicles to perform a designated set of tasks. Each vehicle stores data representing its own capabilities that match the tasks, data representing needed capabilities for the team to perform the tasks, and data representing the capabilities of all current team members. Each of the vehicles is equipped with a communications system operable to send and receive join request messages and join response messages. All join request message contain the capabilities of the sending vehicle. All join response messages contain current team capabilities data. Upon receipt of a join request message, a vehicle compares needed capabilities data to the received capabilities data, and if there are matched capabilities, it updates the team capabilities data and transmits a join response message. Upon receipt of a join response message, if the message indicates the sending vehicle has joined the team, the receiving vehicle updates the team capabilities list.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0001]This invention relates to autonomous unmanned vehicles, and more specifically to such vehicles that cooperate to form teams and negotiate performance of tasks.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]Unmanned vehicles are increasingly also “autonomous”, meaning that the unmanned vehicle has an on-board control system that allows it to perform its mission independently of a human operator. Individual vehicle autonomy is advancing rapidly with regard to capabilities in perception, localization, and navigation.[0003]As unmanned vehicles have improved in their capabilities, so have the variety and complexity of the tasks for which they may be used. However, there are many situations in which a single vehicle cannot meet all the requirements to accomplish a goal.[0004]One approach to accomplishing more complex goals is to use teams of vehicles, among which tasks required to accomplish the goal are distributed. For example, the vehicles may divide tasks among...

Claims

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Application Information

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IPC IPC(8): G05D1/00G08G7/00G06F17/11H04L29/08
CPCG05D1/0088H04L67/12G06F17/11G08G7/00G08G1/22G08G3/02G08G5/0069H04W4/46
Inventor LEMMER, STEPHAN J.MOTT, CAMERON R.AVERY, PAUL A.
Owner SOUTHWEST RES INST
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